Click to join the conversation with over 500,000 Pentecostal believers and scholars
| PentecostalTheology.com
318
book reviews
C.L. Kanagy, T. Beyene, and R. Showalter
Winds of the Spirit: a profile of Anabaptist Churches in the Global South(Harrison-
burg, Virginia; Waterloo, Ontario: Herald Press, 2012). 260 pp. $12.53 paperback.
This is a book about the Anabaptists who are descended from those congre- gations that came out of the radical fringes of the Protestant Reformation. Typically these churches reject infant baptism and, on these grounds, are sepa- rate from the established Protestant churches, whether Anglican or Lutheran, which practice it. Once infant baptism became a widely established rite, the default position for the majority of the population was to assume themselves to belong to the church into which they were baptized. Anabaptists rejected this line of reasoning and were consequently never close to the centres of polit- ical power, especially when this was monarchical. Anabaptists were noted for their spirituality and committed evangelical piety and, since some of the early Anabaptists were politically radical, the later ones survived by emphasising their peace-loving credentials.
After a quietist period and relocation from Europe—where they tended to be persecuted—to other parts of the world, they began to look for fresh inspi- ration. By the 1860s and as a result of spiritual renewal, American Anabaptists started to re-engage in mission and shortly afterwards Swiss-German Mennon- ites also began toset aside their quietist traditionstofind freshreligious fervour. From this burst of religious life, a range of Anabaptist churches in different parts of the world were eventually planted; reporting on a large international survey, this book gives us a profile of their beliefs and practices.
We have data from Anabaptists or Mennonites in the usa, Indonesia, Tan- zania, Ethiopia, Honduras, Vietnam, Kenya, Guatemala, India and the Philip- pines. In total 18,201 respondents completed the congregational survey with response rates calculated either as a percentage of members or as a percent- age of congregations. In the first case the rates ranged between 5% (Indone- sia) and 85% (Philippines) and in the second between 47% (Indonesia) and 100% (several countries). Consequently, this large sample enables differences between countries to be persuasively presented without probability values. Almost always tables give figures as percentages without attempting statisti- cal tests of significance. To put it another way, the raw percentages are almost certainly sufficient to see where significant differences lie.
The book is divided into 10 chapters. The first three provide a short history of the participating churches and give information about the construction, dis- tribution and sampling frame of the questionnaire, and the consultations and procedures adopted by researchers to coordinate the whole project. The pur- pose of the exercise was practical and missional. It wanted to shed light on
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi: 10.1163/15700747-03602017
1
book reviews
319
questions like: ‘how should Christians engage with Muslims?’ ‘Should women be ordained?’ ‘Should Christians experience health and wealth?’ ‘What does it mean to be an Anabaptist?’ Chapter 4 sets the findings against the Enlighten- ment paradigm pervasive in the West but often absent in the global south. The largest congregations were to be found in Ethiopia and the smallest in Vietnam. Femalesoutnumbermales;mostarepredominantlyrural;fewerthan80%have completed high school apart from those in the usa, Honduras and Indone- sia. In the usa, which is now in many respects atypical, 55% of members are professional whereas for all the other countries except one of the Honduran groups members tend to be farmers or homemakers. Members in the usa are on average older than the rest, with a mean age of 53 years, while in Ethiopia, for instance, the mean age is 32 years. On the whole the global south is young, poor, vibrant, missional and influenced by Pentecostalism, while the usa is staid and middle-class. It is a familiar story but backed up here with good empirical evi- dence.
Chapters five to nine present the survey’s findings thematically and the final chapter offers a sketch of ‘emerging visions of Anabaptism in the Global South.’ We learn that well over 94% of Anabaptists in each country believe the Bible is inspired and that Jesus rose from the dead and nearly all, apart from those in the usa, believe that miracles today are the same as in the Bible. Over 82% attend services weekly and most, apart from those in Tanzania, give 10% of their income to the church. There is a persistent opinion that ‘entering the armed forces is always wrong’ though this is only a majority belief in two countries. Over 84% in all countries believe that Christians should promote social justice though, paradoxically, many believe that it is ‘always wrong’ to run for political office or to vote. More than half of Vietnamese, Tanzanians and one group of Kenyans believe Christians and Muslims worship the same God, though only 3% of Indians believe this. About a quarter of Anabaptists believe in deliverance from demons and in speaking in tongues and nearly half (46%) believes in healing—which supports the view that the winds of the Spirit are indeed blowing in many Anabaptist communities.
The book ends by reflecting on possible futures. Is it possible that the thriv- ingsouthern Anabaptist churcheswill besecularizedand decline?Is it alsopos- sible that the colder, older northern Anabaptist churches will be renewed and start attracting young people? Above and beyond these reflections, the authors have brought Anabaptists to Pentecostal attention. The statistical material in the book is easy to understand and requires no special expertise—most of the figures are percentages. What this book does, however, is to demonstrate that in the future Pentecostal historiography and Pentecostal global profiles ought to take account of the Anabaptists, and to include many of them within the scope
PNEUMA 36 (2014) 297–350
2
320
book reviews
of the great outpouring of the Spirit that began at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries.
William K. Kay
Professor of Pentecostal Theology, University of Chester, uk Professor of Theology, Glyndŵr University, uk
PNEUMA 36 (2014) 297–350
3
